The global gaming industry is enormous, generating many billions of dollars in annual revenue. It is a significant part of the global economy, with important relationships to the global travel, entertainment, and telecommunications industries. Directly and indirectly, the global gaming industry entertains and employs millions of people.
For all its value to the global economy, gaming has an obvious downside. The vast majority of customers of the gaming industry lose money. This is true whether they visit casinos, place bets over the internet, or buy lottery tickets. Most of these losses are small; some, however, are catastrophic to the people involved.
Current games typically have—for the average player—negative expected rates of return, with the house receiving cumulative net gains. Obviously, there are individual players who win money, hot tables, etc., but these are, for the most part, statistical anomalies and do not disprove the above statement.
A more serious exception should be noted: occasionally, a player devises a way to “beat the dealer” at his own game. In such cases, a window opens in which, for certain players, the true expected rate of return is greater than the house believes.
In short order, the house adapts, either by changing the game or ejecting the excessively successful player(s); otherwise the game soon ends, for the simple reason that the house cannot afford to play a losing game indefinitely, any more than a player can.
Another limitation of the gaming industry is that large prizes cannot be offered unless some entity is willing to accept the risk of payout. For example, assume that a lottery wishes to offer a one billion dollar prize with appropriately long odds against anyone winning the prize. The prize cannot be offered unless a backer willing to accept the risk of payout can be found. Insurance and reinsurance companies offer backing for certain rare events, such as holes-in-one; but for truly enormous prizes there may be no entity ready to accept the risk.